I'm thinking about some of life's not so little tragedies and wondering about the grieving process and what happens to us if we are not allowed to grieve. I think I know.
This is a very raw entry. I have not censored any of my feelings or any of the events. I have not tried to go back and put them in order because this is the way they came out of me and this is the way they will stay.
So I begin here:
My sister's accident has made me realize something about myself. In the midst of her poetic facebook entries about her fear, her broken hand and contrite spirit--I'm angry, I'm hurt and I'm disappointed.
I have since lost the memory of the date, but I have not lost the memory. I had a miscarriage. Something that I tell no one. I had a miscarriage in 1997. My little one would have been 14 this year. This for some strange reason I think about it most when I'm about to get my period.
Maybe it's not as strange to read it as it is to say it. I think about the baby that was growing in my body and the way it felt to know that we would be a bigger family--a family where my son would have a sister or brother to lean on when times got tough.
So as you might have guessed I'm feeling the pangs of my approaching period and I'm thinking of him/her and although the afternoon seems to focus on that moment on the toilet when I passed what I thought was the baby, but then passed the actual fetus. I knew it was over. There would not be another. There would not be a baby for me. Husbands don't ask for babies. They ask for boats, new TVs, and tickets on 50 yard lines. The focus of the day moves out to the week, that month and that year and I just want to greive. I want to lament. I want to cry.
I didn't cry that day. I laid in a hospital bed for hours. I don't know. The fetus was in a reclaimed icing bowl. You know the kind that store bought icing comes in? Apparently, it's the perfect size for a dead fetus. I put the clot in another bowl and put both in a paper bag and rode to the hospital with it on my lap.
You see, something happened that week. I felt horrible. Sick nauseous and weak. I'd spotted a little so I was privately taking it easy. I didn't say anything to my husband. We had company for the week, so I didn't want to spoil their visit. That weekend my parents were having their garage sale in my carport. I just didn't feel like participating. I was so tired. Maybe even then I knew.
I had a blue dress on. A pretty "shirt dress". With buttons up the front, a full skirt and a matching belt. I wanted to lay on the couch. My mother insisted I come out and help with the garage sale. She said I would feel better if I got outside and moved around a little. Before I knew it, I'd moved a dresser. I was bending and sweating enough to soak through my pretty blue dress. Yes. I know it was stupid. It was my mother, she insisted I "get out and move around a little". Who knows if it was the dresser or the excruciating heat or the spotting I'd already been experiencing.
I went to the doctor that week and there was no heartbeat. He asked me if I'd had "rough sex". I was told to rest and not to have sex. Perhaps the baby was still small and he couldn't find it. I had a stiff upper lip for the nurses and told them if this was the end I was willing to try again. I gave them the response I thought they would want to hear. Inside I was numb. I drove home in silence and told no one. I tried again to "take it easy". Rest.
I believe some time that week, the baby came out. Like I said, first the clot about the size that would fill a cafeteria sized serving spoon and then the hard fibrous mass that was my baby. I wrapped the toilet paper around it as it came out. I wanted to look at it, but by then the toilet paper had formed a coccoon around the little mass that I could not peel away.
I sat there not knowing what to do. I didn't cry. I held it until the blood began to soak through the paper. I called my mother. I was dripping blood like a faucet into the toilet. I just watched it. She opened the door and told me she would call my husband. He came home and said nothing. We went to the hospital in silence. He never comforted me, never put his arms around me, never said anything about it. He has never even referred to it. In fact we never spoke of it again.
At the hospital, the man conducting the sonogram was harsh. He told me I wasn't pregnant and had never been pregnant. He shouted with a thick Asian accent while looking at the screen.
"You not pregnant."
"Nope. You never pregnant."
So I thought maybe it was false. My sister had been pregnant and had miscarried within weeks of me. Maybe it was false. Maybe it was a sympathetic pregnancy. But the doctor had said I was pregnant. I took numerous tests. I peed on the ones you get from the grocery store. I took two of the doctor's tests. I was pregnant. Well, I was.
The next day, I rejoined my life and he rejoined his. It was as if it had never happened. I returned to my private music students and part time work in a church nursery. I know for quite a few Sundays I held the babies a little bit more than I should have. No one seemed to care. Maybe I didn't even care.
My mother made mention of the garage sale she'd hosted in my driveway and asked me if I held her responsible that day. There was no apology. She just wanted to know if I held her responsible. I told her no. I think it was a lie. I think I wanted to hold anyone responsible.
I remember telling him I wanted another one. That I wanted to try this time and to do it right. Take care of myself. Get plenty of rest, lose some weight. He acted like I was crazy and questioned whether I really wanted another one. He told me that our son was such a good boy. Why would I want to disturb that with the chance of having a child that was not so wonderful? What?! I don't know if I've ever heard of a husband asking for a baby. What if the woman never asks?
So someday I will grieve the loss of my little one even if no one else cares.
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